How to Arouse Meditative Concentration through Wisdom

Using wisdom to initiate meditative concentration, one enters samādhi very quickly. The prerequisite is that one's foundation in both meditative concentration and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) is fairly good, so that upon taking one's seat, one can quickly eliminate distracting thoughts and deluded imaginings. One contemplates a piece of dharma meaning with clear content, able to focus on the deliberation quickly, becoming more and more concentrated, weakening and eliminating the obvious deliberation of the mind consciousness, while the manas within still continues deliberating and pondering—without language, without sound, without words—deliberating very deeply. At the beginning of practicing this, it feels rather forced and hard to endure, but once accustomed, one enters samādhi very quickly; body and mind feel extremely comfortable, the whole body is clear and transparent, the mind is lucid, and after emerging from samādhi, body and mind are joyful and one's energy is a hundredfold—far more effective than sleep.

During the process of the manas's deliberation, one can observe that the manas does not consult other dharma meanings, does not compare them with other dharma meanings, and does not guess or imagine; therefore the manas has no mode of deliberation by inference or non-valid cognition—its deliberation is entirely direct perception. Once it reaches a conclusion, that is wisdom of direct perception, relatively genuine, not easily overturned or regretted, and trustworthy; deliberation with the mind consciousness is not like this. Because the manas's deliberation involves no language, words, or sound, for the conclusions it deliberates to take the form of language, words, and sound, the mind consciousness must come to help: the mind consciousness must be awakened and the conclusion transmitted to it, and only after the mind consciousness understands it does it organize language, forming words and sounds; the language and words thus formed will be very concise, clear, transparent, and apt.

This process is rather complex and slow, much slower than the mind consciousness deliberating a problem alone; yet although slow, it is deep, thorough, and apt, representing one's genuine wisdom. Therefore, if a person deliberates very much with the mind consciousness, with mind-consciousness deliberation as the mainstay, then although he may write essays and give speeches very quickly, with abundant and sprawling content, the quality cannot be guaranteed—much less can it be guaranteed to be wisdom of direct perception. There will be much成分 of inference and non-valid cognition, more referenced content; his memory may be excellent and his performance excellent too, but it does not fully represent his genuine wisdom. Hence a good meal does not fear being late, nor does it fear being slow—refinement and deliciousness are the greatest enjoyment.